Mucha Exhibition

Today I finally visited the big Mucha Exhibition that moved Munich after Vienna and Montpellier. Mucha was one of the first artists I took a more serious interest in - his works are just eye-candy - and the fascination still holds. The exhibition was great, I'd give it 10/10 points and can give a definite recommendation. You'll get a complete overview on his work: paintings, studies, grisailles, lithographies (all the famous posters), sculpture, illustration, jewellery. I was especially impressed by all the sketches and studies, I just love these insights into artists' processes and techniques.
Mucha was really exceptionally good at drawing and inking. The inks reminded me of a lot of great modern comic and fantasy art. Both poster and comic art had to rely on line and simplified colours, due to restrictions of the printing process. No wonder a lot of japanese comic artists like Mucha :).

Link: Official website

Giovanni Boldini

I love Giovanni Boldini's portraits from the Belle Époque. His brushstrokes are so dynamic!

Medieval drawing

While browsing their website I discovered this wonderful blog covering the Met's exhibition on medieval drawings. It's a great resource and I certainly wish I could see the exhibition in person!

All of the current exhibitions are worth a look.

hiatus is over!

Hey everyone, I'm back :D I even scanned some sketches. I'm looking forward to posting some postponed entries.

resolutions

Okay I actually want to do well on my
upcoming exams, so I'll have to cut down
the time spent on the internet.
And because I'm an addict just reducing it is
probably not going to work so this blog.
I don't want this blog to be an excuse to be
online, so: no blogging either.
So, wish me luck! (and kick me in the stomach
if I show up too much)
BYE UNTIL JULY

help with thunderbird?

Okay, the madness is over.
I've dealt with the PC problem by just installing
a second operation system on the second harddisc,
so I at least have access my files.
Now I wanted to transfer my thunderbird-profile,
but I just can't find it?
Mozbackup doesn't find anything either...
WHERE IS MY MAIL??? If you had to deal with
something like this, I seriously would appreciate
advice. :(

This sucks so much...

Edit: Problem solved. XP was just hiding essential folders from me, even from the search, oh lol wtf.

Today is just one of those days...

You may have been wondering where the updates are!
The internet in my dorm is broken (für 3 days now). Might be working again on monday.
It happens all of the time and is annoying *grr*
The laptop which I could use to access W-Lan at uni is broken, too D: *cries* Well it's just a problem with the software, but I still need time to fix it.

Also, I'm sick and need to finish a presentation (stored on the broken laptop of course) til tuesday and the most important book arrived, guess what, yesterday. And yesterday I stored two other books at the library (I ASKED whether it was okay to leave them there) and today there were GONE. Reordering takes 10 days. I don't need to mention that the whole presentation-thing is somewhat important, right?

Gah, sorry for moaning but I just feel THAT CLOSE to a minor nervous breakdown right now. :( *headdesk*

picspam!

Yeah, I'm so behind with updating. The weather is changing every two days and I feel like crap. Also I've been busy reading fanfiction doing homework.

Guess what, I've found a painting of Ophelia I didn't know before. I rather like it. (Though I still wonder what's so attractive about painting mad or dead women. It's a whole subgenre of paintings...)



Quickpost this image to Myspace, Digg, Facebook, and others!

#3

Not much today! Urm... I went to see Star Trek?


Bonus!: Fragment of a fanart that will never ever see the light of day.

#2

To do

- get job
- clean up that mess you call your room
- get new coversheet for my pen tablett (currently not available at wacomshop lol)

I'll try to upload a little something each day, even if I'm deadly tired, like now. WISH ME LUCK.

Spring means everything is full of little birds

One of my favourite pasttimes is to take a stroll through the park and... take photographs of ducks. *snickers* Right now there are hundreds and thousands of little baby ducks and geese out there and I really could stalk them all day, that's how adorable they are. Today the light was much better than when I took these photos, but of course I didn't bring my camera :( Oh well.

I couldn't identify this one.




There is nothing more ridiculous than sleeping birds. Standing on one leg with your eyes open? Really.

anatomy!

I'd have a bad conscience posting 10 illustrator-related posts in a row, so I'll show you some approximately 100 years old anatomy-studies. Ohmygod they are so lifeless and boring, I'm sorry. They did help though. I'm actually drawing quite a bit these days, but most of it is rather meh.

Nancy E. Burkert

A while back I was researching fairy tale illustration and one artist I got to know this way and whose art stood out was Nancy E. Burkert.

From "Acknowledgments," by H. Nichols B. Clark:
"Because Nancy Ekholm Burkert's work is so thoughtful and deliberate, she is not a prolific artist. Whether creating an easel painting, a print, or an illustration for a book, Nancy brings to her task the highest aesthetic measure. No detail is too insignificant to warrant intense scrutiny, and her exacting standards reflect the meticulous research she brings to any endeavor. One need only survey the research materials and preliminary drawings she assembled in producing Valentine & Orson to fully appreciate the methodical regimen to which she adheres. As Jane Curley points out in her thoughtful essay, Nancy scours the full spectrum of art history to infuse the requisite image with the appropriate resonance."

Sadly I douldn't find a lot by her on the web. Her work for Snow White looks so well-researched though, delicate and gentle, the colouring reminding me of theso-called primitivists up to Boticelli.

Wikipedia has a list of the books she illustrated and I've found something about her here. (It's a pity there are no pictures to go with that article.) I'm happy some books about her are available.

J.C. Leyendecker

I just want to share a bit of my newfound fondness for art déco stuff. Leyendecker is really famous, but he's not so well-known here and I don't know him for that long.

I really like his simplification of form and shapes and the boldness of his designs. Interestingly it reminds me of a lot of the digital illustration from today.
I you are further interested, I found a nice summary of his career here .






This socks advertisement amuses me greatly.


He really liked these blocked in white backgrounds.

quick portrait

Spring cleaning

Yesterday was such a lovely day. I started cleaning my room, but I'm not finishd yet.

I've listened to music all day (it's easter after all!) and I realized that I want to sing in a choir again so badly. :( I loved it so much.

Have a color study (after screencaps from Atonement which was rather well-lit IMO.) This is not the only one, but the one I like best. I consider doing a few more of these, it's fun.

HRSL

I've noticed that the website form the workshop I attended last year has been updated. You can check out the other artist's work (which made me feel vastly inferior), if you want to. I think it's worth it . :)
>> HERE.
Here's some of the more fnished stuff I produced. It's older now and I've shown it before, but I want to give this entry a little bit more substance ;) Hmmm now I'm in the mood to draw trees again.

I bought comics.

Today I went to a bookstore, because I wanted to buy Fun Home, but they didn't have it anymore.
So I wasted money on two other comic books instead , namely
(- because Vikings are awesome! Hey Lucca, want to borrow? ;) ) andI don't know anything about it (didn't see the movie) but I fell in love with the raw art style.
I'm looking forward to reading them! (when my exams are over)

I'm also very interested in reading some Moebius stuff, but I don't really know where to begin. Do you have any recommendations?

I've got an account on GoodReads.com now! I've had the desire to keep track of what I read and whether I liked it and why for some time now. This site is really nice and well-designed and the network is huge, I instantly felt comfortable. Is anybody else there so we can BE FRIENDS? +~*

some squeeage

I want to see this movie.


I've read some lukewarm reviews but I don't care.
I love the warm colour scheme, the retro-design (it's from 2001), the setting (Middle Ages! Just looks at the blond woman from the trailer, she's straight out of a tapestry or illuminated manuscript) and last but not last the fantastic flying machine. Seeing the kind of day-to-day life scenes of poeple working makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside (Emma bcame one of my favourite manga because of this kind of loving attention to details, I'm pretty easily smitten by these things it seems.)
This song is so beautiful, too.

Today sucks.

So have a WIP

OP

An overpainting, for lack of other things to update with. (I hope you don't mind Avis?)

speedy and some skintones

Painting from today :) I want my brushwork to loosen up a little. It's actuallya lot of fun to just paint and not worry about proper rendering. (rendering this kind of stupid motifs isn't really fun anyways)
I've been trying to use more of photoshop's functions that are very useful but I never really experimented with, like the sharpen-tool ore adding saturation with the brush-modi.
I am also somewhat happier now with my ability to pick the right contrasts from the beginning.

whee +~*

Not fully convinced yet xD (monochrome version is nice too)

Basteln

Today AvisNocturna visited and we crafted. I own this cute little book which covers the basics of how pictures have an emotional impact.

There are some exercises to do with cut paper in the end.
So the task we assigned to ourselves was to "convey the essence of birds attacking a victim" with simple shapes. This was actually a lot harder than it might seem! It took us so long and there were other tasks that were like "do a sequence of 5 or 6 pictures" and we were like "oh nooo it's going to take a week". ;)


This is my take:

This is Avis':